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Catacomb   Listen
noun
Catacomb  n.  A cave, grotto, or subterraneous place of large extent used for the burial of the dead; commonly in the plural. Note: The terms is supposed to have been applied originally to the tombs under the church of St. Sebastian in Rome. The most celebrated catacombs are those near Rome, on the Appian Way, supposed to have been the place or refuge and interment of the early Christians; those of Egypt, extending for a wide distance in the vicinity of Cairo; and those of Paris, in abandoned stone quarries, excavated under a large portion of the city.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Catacomb" Quotes from Famous Books



... appears to be. There are few conditions or countries of which he has not worn the mask. No person knows who he is, whence he comes, or whither he goes. That he has been for a long time in Egypt, as many pretend, and that he has brought from thence, out of a catacomb, his, occult sciences, I will neither affirm nor deny. Here we only know him by the name of the Incomprehensible. How old, for instance, do ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... one alley into another, as if lost in a catacomb, or the troubling mazes of a nightmare. Always the walls were blank, save for a deep-set, nail-studded door, or a small window like a square dark hole. Yet in reality, Nevill Caird was not lost. ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... went to the Catacomb of St. Calixtus, the entrance to which is alongside of the Appian Way, within sight of the tomb of Cecilia Metella. We descended not a very great way under ground, by a broad flight of stone steps, and, ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... visit. They descended with him to the Crypt, where the Holy Father, as soon as he entered, knelt in prayer beside the remains of his sainted predecessor, who, more than seventeen centuries ago, had sealed his faith with his blood. After examining the long corridors of the catacomb, the Holy Father took his seat on the ancient throne of the chapel, which, no doubt, in the dark days of heathen persecution, several of his predecessors had filled. So placed, he delivered to the pupils of ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell

... mask. But however striking these dramatic characters may be to the occasional spectator, they figure merely as an odor, a confusion, to the permanent serf of the Subway.... A long underground station, a catacomb with a cement platform, this was the chief feature of the city vista to the tired girl who waited there each morning. A clean space, but damp, stale, like the corridor to a prison—as indeed it was, since through it each morning Una entered ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis

... so the vassals of a fiendish foe Are scattered far and wide into a dust. Those who have revelled as they wreaked red woe, A shattered sample of their own blood-lust. Whilst from our hill-crest and its catacomb, A new life comes a-pouring ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss

... cavern, grotto, grot, den, catacomb, crypt. Associated words: speleology, spelean, stalactite, stalagmite, cavernicolous, troglodytic, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... less elastic, less receptive, less adaptive. Much as he tried to blink the fact, he was compelled to depend more and more on the office behind him. His personal gallery, the gallery under his hat, showed a tendency to become both obsolete and inadequate. That endless catacomb of lost souls grew too intricate for one human mind to compass. New faces, new names, new tricks tended to bewilder him. He had to depend more and more on the clerical staff and the finger-print bureau records. His position became that of a villager with a department store on his hands, ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer

... their closed shutters and dive down into their cellars when the shells begin to crash; and the schools, transferred to a neighbouring village, number over two thousand pupils. We walked through the town, visited a vast catacomb of a wine-cellar fitted up partly as an ambulance and partly as a shelter for the cellarless, and saw the lamentable remains of the industrial quarter along the river, which has been the special target of the German guns. Thann has been industrially ruined, ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton

... This fossil body was not the only one in this immense catacomb. We came upon other bodies at every step amongst this mortal dust, and my uncle might select the most curious of these specimens to demolish the ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne

... were buried St. Cecilia, St. Agnes, and several other of the most celebrated of the saints. In the catacomb of St. Callixtus, St. Bridget used to remain long hours in holy contemplation, and St. Charles Borromeo was wont to spend whole nights in prayer there. It was also the scene of a very ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain



Words linked to "Catacomb" :   Roma, tunnel, Rome



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